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Architects: Allies and Morrison
- Area: 7940 m²
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Photographs:Jack Hobhouse
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Manufacturers: Addingtons Formwork, BPC, Environmental Fabrications, FP McCann, Flood Precast, Kone, Lazenby, NA Curtain Walling, Paragon
Text description provided by the architects. The new School of Public Health at Imperial occupies a key site on the university's White City campus. Designed for academics, researchers, students and public health professionals, the building provides a mixture of teaching, research and community outreach space for the school's multidisciplinary work in healthcare, health policy and epidemiology. Advances in medical understanding derive from working partnerships, when practitioners and researchers can compare and validate data, test research findings and develop resources together. At the heart of the School of Public Health's design therefore is a drive to facilitate sharing and collaboration with spaces that can be shaped and reorganised to suit a range of functions, working practices and research groups.
The School is organized over ten floors (plus roof plant). The current configuration provides 3230 sqm of office, research and community engagement space over floors 3-7, with teaching space on floors 1 and 2. A basement accommodates cycle storage and plant. Floor plates are designed around a standard bay size for simple internal rearrangement. Each bay is 7.8m x 7.8m and can be arranged to provide everything from large open space to small cellular offices. By pushing the building's core to the south, large flexible spaces with good daylight and minimal glare have been created on each typical floor. There are also areas on each floor providing staff and student amenity and informal social space. For privacy, the south facade is stepped, with east-facing windows concealed to turn away from the residential building opposite. The north-facing facade by contrast is open and transparent. On the ground floor, views through from the reception area to the generous daylit stairwell aid wayfinding and, in line with public health aspirations, encourage active circulation. Also on the ground floor, a flexible and divisible 85 sqm space for community uses and outreach puts this important strand of the School's work on public display, clearly visible from and addressing the busy Wood Lane street.
Location and Campus Role - The School of Public Health is only an eight minute walk from Hammersmith Hospital Campus, and the building plays an important urban role, addressing visitors approaching from the north and marking arrival at the Imperial White City North Campus. The building entrance is located at the centre of a colonnade spanning the north elevation, while on its eastern side it addresses the small square at the heart of the campus. At 10-storeys, the School's height mediates between the scale of Victorian terraces on Wood Lane and the high-rise residential tower of 88 Wood Lane to the south.
Material Palette - The architecture employs robust exposed finishes and a family of colours. Pale terracotta-coloured metal cladding with a sand-textured finish is used on the building's exterior alongside white pre-cast concrete facade panels. Inside, fair-faced concrete, cast in-situ, and Douglas fir, characterise the reception area and main circulation stair. Deep red acoustic panels and painted doors, as well as tiling and other finishes in kitchenettes and circulation spaces, WCs, and shower rooms pick up the colour theme.
Working with Imperial at White City Campus - The School of Public Health is the second new building that Allies and Morrison has completed for Imperial at White City Campus. The Sir Michael Uren Hub was completed in 2019. Immediately to the south of these two buildings is the next phase of Imperial's White City Campus development. It will deliver new teaching, research and innovation space for academics and businesses. This will support Imperial's continued expansion in mathematics, data and computer sciences, AI and machine learning and business. Our masterplan for this site gained planning consent in 2021.
